I recently learned of a version of soccer known as silent soccer.
What is that you ask?
It is defined as: A form of soccer in which spectators are not allowed to yell, cheer, or coach from the sidelines.
Even if you have never been to a soccer game you can imagine how odd this would be.
Imagine being on the field as a player or official. No jeers. No cajoling. No yelling about mistakes. It might seem like heaven for a minute. But there would be something else missing too. Imagine no cheers, no encouragement, no support of any kind.
As a leader are you treating your team members as if you were at a silent soccer game?
Are people performing in a vacuum?
Do they know how they are doing?
Are they getting enough (any) cheers, encouragement and positive reinforcement?
I don’t know if this is the game you are playing, but I know it is a game far more prevalent in the workplace than at a soccer field. While it seems silly to set those rules for a soccer game, but it seems far too prevalent in offices and on shop floors around the world.
The annual performance review isn’t enough. Calling out mistakes when we seem them isn’t enough either. Good performance requires ongoing feedback.
Make sure you aren’t playing silent leadership.
Kevin — Such a simple, yet powerful message. I love the analogy of leadership behavior to silent soccer and believe it will ring true with a lot of leaders. If it even moves one leader to behave differently by providing daily feedback — both positive and corrective — you will have succeeded in getting your message across. Kudos!
Kevin:
I get your point, but I’ll give you another side of this. Having coached youth soccer for many years, I eagerly awaited “Silence on the Sidelines” games each year! The primary beneficiaries were the kids – imagine, no parents blurting out instructions that only served to confuse and frustrate the player, drive the coach nuts and disturb parents in the vacinity who had to listen to the loudmouth. I know plenty of leaders who could stand to be silent more often and let their employees do what they were hired to do. The leaders could save their voice for bursting out in cheers to celebrate their employee’s success (cheering a goal was still allowed during “Silence”).
Kent – your point is equally well taken. THANKS for sharing it.
Kevin 🙂
I always love a good soccer parable. I use soccer as examples in many cases.
A good timed cheer is golden. I once noticed that the departement’s mood fell to the floor. Got into my batman costume and ran around the office for two minutes. The effect was amazing, what seemed like a grey cloud turned out to be a sunny day.
I totally agree with Kent also, but a good cheer is free, and when used correctly work wonders. I don’t normally run around the office shouting and cheering. But I do shake their hands, thank them or brag about them, not as a soccer hooligan but more as a “reporter” recording the event at the sideline and using large fonts in the next days’ newspaper. 😀
I try to walk around the office as often as possible, and talk to people, brag and make them smile, but I never interupt their work (I hope…)